atcovrett wrote: Fri Apr 25, 2025 2:51 pm
Very excited to try out the new Realistic Lens models - however, I've noticed some serious limitations:
1) IPR UI controls (ie Pick Focus, Disable DOF) don't work with Realistic Lens enabled.
2) With Realistic Lens enabled, you can't zoom/pan the IPR camera. (Which is extremely important for look development). This functionality works when switching to any other camera model.
2) Adjusting the Sensor Width parameter allows for some necessary reframing in the IPR, but options currently feel too limited when adjusting the DOF intensity and camera focus distance.
3) As others have noted, when working with Realistic Lens, the IPR struggles to register and update camera/object repositioning without a full-scene reload. (Annoying!)
I'd also like to request a few additional features:
4) It would be
incredible to have independent Pan/Zoom functionality on the IPR canvas. Currently, zoom/pan actually modifies the scene camera, which isn't always helpful as that changes the composition/camera positioning, and resets the IPR sampling. In my opinion, this is currently the most disruptive 'quirk' when coming from other working environments/DCCs.
5) Unless I'm missing something, there's doesn't seem to be an intuitive way to work with LUTS when also working in ACES. Ideally, there'd be a way to apply a LUT transformation after the ACES conversion to sRGB display.
Hey atcovrett
Thank you for submitting your feedback!
- To 1&2 yes those thing should be fixed. Our dev is on vacation for just a few more days, but will have him take a look when he's back! For now as a workaround what I would recommend is working using one of the other lens options with the appropriate focal length and then switching to the realistic lens for final render.
- On the... second 2?
... so that is a limitation of how the realistic lens works. We can't just change the focal length on the fly as it simulates a real lens, with real glass elements etc, so in terms of a zoom, all we have for now is changing the sensor width. Now maybe they will add "zoom lenses" at some point, but for now that's not the case. Not sure if that's what you meant. One thing that is currently not working is the fstop parameter on the camera, and hopefully that will be fixed here soon, that will at least give you control over the depth of field.
- 3. Hmm I'm not really having any issues with the realistic lens updating in the viewport as I move around. Can you give me a little more info in what ways you're having issue there? Because there is a separate issue where scene geometry is disappearing in animated scenes in the latest build, which is not related to the realistic lens. Do you have an animated camera and the motion is not tracking in the viewport? Or is the issue more with live panning and moving the camera around? What houdini version and what os are you on? The more info you can provide on this the more likely we can improve the issue!
- 4. Yes that's been something that's been requested a lot. I think that's something we will try to get in, but just not sure when
- 5. So if you're working in ACES but want to preview luts the way to do that is with the custom output AOVs. If you dive into the rendertarget it will take you to the output AOV section, with one example AOV setup already. You can plug in an "Apply LUT" node into the layer group and add your lut there.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully we can get most of these things resolved here soon!
